Upgrade Home Premium to Enterprise

mickey megabyte said:

is your name cindy?

Bill2 said:

Just a couple of points.

2) Enterprise version and Ultimate version have identical features but they are NOT identical versions. So, as you would have already seen from the link Theog posted, a Home premium upgrade to Ultimate is possible but not to Enterprise. The reason is Enterprise is only sold via a Volume License agreement and a local activation server.

To switch to the university's Enterprise license, you would need to do a clean install. So, back up your data and image your existing windows (since you have paid for them and may want to revert to them at a future date), then clean install Enterprise.

+1: I work with Enterprise all the time, your best bet is to do clean install. There are ways to get around this but I would not recommend them and you are only asking for problems in the future.

gregrocker said:

Bill is correct: mixed reports on whether retail key will always work in an Anytime Upgrade.

But as he points out the licensing scheme is separate under Enterprise anyway, so a retail key (including Anytime) will not work, only a volume license key.

Nor will the popular workaround to fool installer into thinking it is doing a Repair Install (upgrade over itself) by changing two registry keys to reflect same version. Even if it worked, it will not activate without volume license.

+1: Also need to remember that you need the MAK key to get started and then setup your KMS server for your VLP Key.

Lordbob75 said:

I would highly recommend wiping the laptops (gets off all that crapware) and just install Enterprise. Do this once, make a system image, use it on all the laptops. I am sure you know how to deploy

~Lordbob

+1: Again: I work with Enterprise all the time, your best bet is to do clean install. There are ways to get around this but I would not recommend them and you are only asking for problems in the future.